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Right, which is why modern revolutionaries favor "direct action" against an unfair system -- in addition to protests, this includes things like intentionally tu
by wayoutthere 7y ago
Right, which is why modern revolutionaries favor "direct action" against an unfair system -- in addition to protests, this includes things like intentionally turning a blind eye to shoplifters (aka "no snitching"), stealing from your employer, or actively sabotaging their plans. It's easy to disguise as incompetence or laziness because there's no explicit coordination.
We all have to work to eat, but nothing says people legally have to do a good job in most positions -- and it's easy to get away with if you can talk a good game. The idea is that because the rules aren't enforced against the people at the top, why should the people at the bottom help enforce them against their peers? If the police are a tool of the oppressive state, why would you help them in any way? If you're systemically oppressed, why would you not be dishonest and game the system in every way you could?
- seemslegit 7y agoYou are literally advocating for at-will employment here, which says noone cares if you're genuinely or politically incompetent and will be fired all the same.
- wayoutthere 7y agoYou have the causality reversed -- at-will employment is the norm in the US because union-busting prevents collective bargaining. Political incompetence is the result of this situation, not the cause of it. Corporate leaders are generally on negotiated contracts that protect them in the event of genuine incompetence (the "golden parachute"), which reduces the motivation for political incompetence. Regular workers and middle management rarely get that luxury.
- seemslegit 7y agoFor causality to be reversed unions and collective bargaining would have had to exist and be the norm prior to at-will employment. More like unions and collective bargaining were successfully discredited by engaging in excesses of their own - some along the lines you advocated
- wayoutthere 7y agoCollective bargaining works just fine in countries that protect it. I'm way more ok with the excesses being spread among multitudes of workers than having those "excesses" concentrated in the bonuses of executives -- which is the situation we have today. Fixing this requires having an honest discussion about how we distribute wealth between workers and owners. But it's not surprising the people who currently take the lion's share are actively preventing that conversation from happening. None of this is particularly radical, and it's basically what Bernie Sanders is running on. His positions are solidly center-right by European standards, so it's not like he's proposing some radical thought experiment.
- seemslegit 7y agoPretty sure Bernie Sanders is not running on the platform of encouraging shoplifting or sabotaging your workplace.
- wayoutthere 7y agoHe’s not; but the far left does. Bernie isn’t remotely far left. He’s advocating for solutions within the existing framework of capitalism, the far left wants anarcho-communism (the same way the far right wants anarcho-capitalism). That’s not gonna happen, so extremists on both sides say fuck your employer and steal.